


How Levi Ended Up Living in Hanji's Basement

by FriendshipCastle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Levi lives in Hanji's basement, Nonbinary Character, Recreational Drug Use, based on a headcanon with a friend, teen for swearing, they are besties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1690274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My friend and I decided that Levi lives in Hanji's basement and smokes pot a lot.  I can't look at his face without seeing him as a huge stoner.</p><p>This is kind of how they met and became buddies.  I don't know anything about Levi's canon past so I made it up.  I decided no one gets to know where Hanji came from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Levi Ended Up Living in Hanji's Basement

Hanji Zoe got their own house because they’d scared everyone away. It was an amazing skill, and Captain Erwin wondered if it had been an intentional, deliberate plan of attack or if Hanji had succeeded in driving everyone away instead of being driven away purely through some territorial instinct. He did not wonder too long, however. Though the Survey Corps owned several dormitory buildings that emptied and filled on a depressingly quick rotation, he could not afford to have a single house for a single occupant. It was wasteful. It was also rather indulgent, and Erwin had a reputation as a hardass to maintain.

Somehow, though, fortune came to his aid. He’d ended up with a strange little survivor who freaked everyone out. Perhaps the two odd recruits could work together. At least they could refrain from freaking everyone out if they were living with just each other.

Erwin glanced away from the carriage’s window and into the dull, dead eyes of a very small man with a terribly shitty haircut. His face was lineless, but that was probably due to his constant lack of expression. Levi had said that he was in his thirties. He was even smaller than most of the female recruits, though. His measurements put him barely past five foot two. His size was ideal for maneuver gear, of course, as less weight meant less gas wasted. He was officially the oldest active member of the Survey Corps, but only because he’d agreed to join the Corps so late in life. Even with his high training scores, most higher-ups had bets that he wouldn’t last past the first mission; they were of the ‘train them young’ school of philosophy. Erwin had his doubts about this philosophy. They trained young people because those were the volunteers, the directionless and orphaned and confused. Older people wanted quieter lives, and thus avoided volunteering for the military. 

Levi belonged in neither camp. He had spent his youth dealing with the kinds of human beings that Erwin, who had killed countless Titans before he rose in the ranks, would rather not meet. He had dealt drugs. He had stolen. He had probably done a lot of things to survive, most of which were immoral or illegal. And then he had stolen maneuver gear. And, most amazingly of all, Erwin had caught him using it within a year. Using it well, too. Levi had been running drugs and messages all over cities around the human-occupied territory, always outpacing the few peacekeepers who tried to stop him. Erwin had found him, though, with some quiet help from trustworthy sources (it paid to have friends in low places). He’d tracked him down in one of the many ghettos where Levi worked and had informed him that he would arrest him if he did not agree to join the Survey Corps.

Levi had simply stared at him blankly. “That’s the elites.”

“Yes.”

“Why them?”

“I’ve heard stories about you and your skills with the maneuver gear,” Erwin had told him. “We need people like you in the program. Our division in particular. We need finesse and individual skill. We cannot simply continue our strategy of throwing green recruits out into the field and working with the survivors.”

“You’re saying your organization’s a fucking death trap and you want me to volunteer anyway,” Levi had said, voice flat.

“You don’t have a choice,” Erwin had told him, bending down so his face was level with the other man’s. “Your nation needs you. And we need you. Badly. More than the crime rings do, I can tell you that much. I can’t promise you a longer life if you agree to join my division, but I can promise you it will be time spent out in the fresh air and not in the smallest, darkest cell I can find.”

Levi’s expression had not changed. “Fine.”

Erwin straightened up and swept a hand towards the carriage that had brought him here. “Come, then.”

“Right now?”

Erwin frowned. “How much are you carrying?”

Levi shifted slightly. Parts of his threadbare greatcoat clinked and rustled. “A bit. And I have shit to bring with me.”

“Can I trust you to report within two hours to the recruitment agency?”

The man nodded once. There was no reading that dead face.

Erwin nodded back. “I will see you at recruitment in three years’ time, then.” He turned to go.

“Six months,” Levi had said as Erwin walked away. “I don’t need three years.”

It had been slightly gratifying when Erwin saw Levi standing in the recruitment crowd eleven months later. Only slightly gratifying, though. It was still unheard of, to graduate in less than three years. Significantly less than three years. The man had taught _himself_ how to maneuver, after all.  
He stayed standing in front of the stage after Erwin had made his speech and the entirety of his graduating group had walked away from the Survey Corps. In those eight months, his face had gained no more expression. He simply walked up to the stage. 

“What now?” he asked.

“Now we see what you can do,” Erwin had told him. And both of them had.

The man was a survivor. He’d survived missions that had wiped out the rest of his team. He rose in the ranks on the backs of the fallen, but only because he was better than they were. He did not rely on anyone. He never developed partner moves. He simply kept coming back from missions.

His housemates complained.

“He’s horrible at the harmonica,” one groaned. “This mopey shit is killing me!”

“He barely talks,” said another. “When he does talk, he’s weird. He tells weird jokes. They’re the kind of things a five-year-old would say. And then he just looks at you. It’s creepy.”

“The entire house reeks!” another said. “It’s like he’s trying to cook and failing miserably!”

“Cook?” Erwin had asked. “Cook what?”

“I dunno,” the man had shrugged. “It smells like burned oregano, though.”

“Ah,” Erwin said, and had decided to hold an impromptu room search.

Levi had barely blinked when Erwin upended his tiny chest of drawers and found nothing but uniforms and packets of marijuana. The pipe was right there, by the mattress on the floor that was neatly made up. There was a stack of books, all the spines squared off, at the foot of the bed, a harmonica resting on top of the stack, his maneuver gear sitting propped in a corner, and other than his smoking paraphernalia, Levi seemed to own nothing.

“Your housemates are complaining,” Erwin had said, picking up one of the packets and inspecting it. “Are you dealing again?”

“No, sir,” Levi had said.

“Are you lying?”

“No, sir.”

“Will you stop?”

“No, sir.”

Erwin dropped the packet among the rest. Levi twitched slightly, then bent to pick everything up.

“They want you out,” Erwin said. “Of the house.”

“I can find somewhere else to live,” Levi had said. He piled the packets into a tidy tower.

“You didn’t have a place to live even before I blackmailed you to come here.”

“You know, sir, that’s the first time you’ve admitted that what you did was blackmail.”

Erwin had closed his eyes and silently prayed for strength. “Your insubordination has been noted.”

Levi began sorting his weed back into the dresser. Erwin had suddenly remembered that he had one house to fill. 

Now he was pulling up in front of it, Levi across from him. Hanji had been informed. They had also been informed that their wall decorations were disturbing and should be taken down. It was doubtful they would comply. They had never complied before. 

Erwin knocked on the front door, then entered with his own key after waiting ten seconds and hearing no movement. “Hanji Zoe lives here,” he told Levi. “They have driven all of their housemates away, so it is only them in the house. I’m not sure you won’t join the ranks of ex-housemates, but I thought this was worth a try. And they have informed everyone that they refuse gendered pronouns, and the results of using ‘he’ or ‘she’ have been… disturbing. I’d advise against it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hanji?” Erwin called. He listened for a moment, then went to the cellar door. It was open a bit, and flickering light showed through the crack. “Hanji,” Erwin called again, no longer a question. It did not pay to sound uncertain in front of other people.

Levi simply stood in the middle of the floor, eyes scanning the rest of the house.

Footsteps banged up the stairs. It sounded like a horse bearing down at a gallop. Erwin tried to make his step back look like a smart, sharp movement rather than a nervous stumble. 

Hanji burst through the door, brown hair flying. “Hi, chief! Sorry, is it time already?”

“Yes,” Erwin said, stepping back again. “What were you doing?”

“Planning a few things,” Hanji said, waving a hand airily. “Thinking, you know. Doing jumping jacks.”

“This is Levi,” Erwin said, waving at the man. 

Hanji’s eyes flicked to Levi, looked him up and down, then darted back to Erwin. “Yeah, okay? Cool? Sir?”

“He is to be your new roommate,” Erwin said.

“Oh, right!” Hanji clapped themselves on the forehead. “No _duh_ , I forgot. Sorry, sir. Sorry, Levi. I’m Hanji Zoe. Just Hanji, really.” They stuck out an ink-spattered hand in Levi’s direction.

Levi stared at the stained fingers blankly. “Hello.”

“Don’t wanna shake?” Hanji asked, peering closer at him.

“You’re… It seems you need to wash your hands,” Levi said. He cleared his throat. “Urgently.”

Hanji inspected their own nails, turning the fingers this way and that. “Eh, I’ve done worse. You wanna see what I was doing? Erwin, you wanna come?”

“No,” Erwin said, stepping away with deliberation. “I have work to do. Levi, good luck. Hanji, attempt to control your enthusiasm for the macabre.” They both saluted him as he left, and he nodded at them in acknowledgment before he shut the door. It was not until he was seated in his carriage, on his way to the next strategy meeting with his head staff, that he allowed himself a small sigh of relief. He was not a hopeful man, but Captain Erwin hoped that he would not have to deal with Hanji and Levi’s living situation ever again. If things went perfectly, they would get along fine. If things went well, one of them would probably kill the other. If things went badly, he’d have to figure out yet again where to put both of them.

* 

“Okay, so I was trying to draw basic Titan anatomy,” Hanji babbled as they walked backward down the basement stairs. Levi followed them, looking around the candle-lit room and ignoring the monologue.

There were tables piled high with cracked tomes, strange glass beakers and vials and tubes, and piles of notes. Drawings were taped to the walls. A few guns were propped against the wall, all sporting modifications that looked homemade. Hanji rushed to one of the clearer tables and snapped on a pair of goggles, still talking cheerfully.

“…Aberrants throw us off every time,” they were saying when Levi tuned back in. “I was trying to categorize what purpose their modified movements serve and all that, based on the field notes of various Survey Corps survivors. There’s a lot of complaining to sort through, though.”

“Complaining?” Levi asked.

“Yeah,” Hanji said, snorting. “Dead friends and all that. It’s like, _duh_ , what did you think was gonna happen when you joined the Survey Corps? You were gonna live into your eighties?” They giggled and bent over a sheet of paper. It took them three tried to get a quill in the inkwell rather than their fingers, but Hanji never looked away from the paper in front of them. “I mean, I got into this team so I could learn more about the Titans. What about you?”

“Threats,” Levi said. “Blackmail, too.” He began to walk the perimeter, picking up a stray candle as he passed. “Have you been on any missions yet?”

“A few,” Hanji said. “Not a ton. Three or four.”

“How many friends of yours died?”

Hanji took their quill off the paper in order to throw back their head and laugh. “Friends? Levi, I’m the weird kid! I’m the only one from my training squad who joined the Survey Corps and survived the first mission, and even before that no one wanted to talk to me. I was the only one with a real reason to be here, yanno? Everyone else was going for glory or a spot in the inner wall. Or they wanted to mess with Titans. I just wanted to study them, so apparently that’s weird?”

“That is weird,” Levi told them.

“I hear you’re like thirty-five,” Hanji said. “And you’re what, four feet tall? That’s pretty weird.”

Levi turned towards them. The light of the candle was trapped under his cheekbones, leaving his eyes hollowed in shadow. “Are you curious how I made it to thirty-five when I’m this short and weird, fucko?”

Hanji and Levi stared at each other. 

“Yeah,” Hanji said quietly.

“Fruit keeps you regular,” Levi said. “And I never miss an opportunity to eat more broccoli. It’s the scrub-brush for the colon.”

Hanji’s eyes narrowed behind the glass of their goggles.

“You need to take a lot of shits to survive,” Levi added. “Clean yourself out.”

Hanji made a tiny whining noise and collapsed behind the table. Levi could hear them thrashing around back there. It took a few minutes for their laughter to reach levels that were audible to humans rather than dogs. “Shits to survive!”

Levi walked over and peered down at them. “Are you okay?”

Hanji pushed the goggles up so they could wipe the tears from their eyes. “Oh my god, dude, you are so _funny_! You’re _killing_ me here!”

A faint frown line appeared between Levi’s eyebrows. “Are you seriously okay?”

“Poop jokes!” Hanji howled. “Priceless!” The laughter forced its way out from Hanji’s gut once more, echoing off the walls. 

Levi nodded solemnly. “Where will I be sleeping, Hanji?”

“Oh, dude,” Hanji gasped, rubbing at their eyes again and making no effort to stand, “just pick a room. I mean, it’s kind of obvious which one’s mine. Pick one of the other three or something, I don’t know. Can you cook?”

“A bit.”

“Great, you’re in charge of dinner. See if you can make something edible out of what we’ve got.” Their mouth trembled briefly, then Hanji’s entire face collapsed into a grin. “We’re all outta fruit!” They were off again, rolling on the floor giggling.

“Fine,” Levi said. 

When he checked the rest of the house, all he found were more books of Titan reports. He found them piled in every room. They were even stacked on top of the oven in the kitchen. The only organizational system Levi could detect was that books in particular rooms seemed to be a part of a specific age. There were field notes and journals and a few outdated textbooks. There were sheafs of notes in what could only be Hanji’s cramped handwriting. There were more chemical sets and books of notes on Titan physiology, as well as the properties of skin and bone and blood and bile. Hanji had effectively taken over this entire house. The only suggestion that one room in particular belonged to them was the presence of maneuver gear among the ubiquitous books in one room, and a sleeping bag half-unzipped nearby.

Levi thought for a moment. He walked through each room again. He checked the view from each window. Every one looked out into another person’s window. Hanji had taken the only street view.

Captain Erwin had never noticed the fact that Levi’s safehouses never had windows, or if the windows existed, they were facing a busy road. Working on the wrong side of the law meant that Levi had enemies; the police as well as other criminals were out to get him. That had been over a year ago. Even so, people could hold a grudge. Especially those people who had never received the drugs or money Levi had agreed to give them. Since he was going to the training camp anyway, he’d chosen to take what he’d been given instead of passing it along. There was always a risk to what he did.

Levi made his way back into the basement. “Can I sleep down here?”

Hanji looked up. “What?”

“Can I live here? In the basement?”

“You kidding?”

“No.”

“No!” Hanji said. “This is where I keep my experiments!”

“You have experiments upstairs, too,” Levi pointed out.

“The experiments down here are the _deadly_ ones,” Hanji sighed, as if the distinction should be obvious.

“How deadly?” Levi asked.

“I dunno. Like on a scale from one to ten? Probably a six. Stuff might explode. I dunno.”

“I see.” Levi chose a corner and set his satchel down. “I can take a risk.”

“You want, like, a mattress down here?” Hanji said, frowning.

“Yes,” Levi said. “I can bring it down.”

Hanji laughed and dropped their quill on the paper, ignoring the spattering over their meticulous drawing of an Aberrant Titan. “As funny as that would be to watch, I can help you out no problem. You don’t have to solo that one, mini-man.”

“Don’t call me that,” Levi said. Though his expression did not change, the room seemed to grow colder.

“Right, right,” Hanji said, raising their hands to ward off his rage. “It’s cool. I can help, though.”

“Fine,” Levi said.

“I might be down here weird hours,” Hanji ventured as the two of them steered a mattress down the steps, Haji walking backwards.

“Fine,” Levi said. “I might be smoking pot and farting when you come down.”

Hanji dropped their end of the mattress and slid all the way down the rest of the stairs, laughing the entire way. “Fart!”

“You’re easy to please,” Levi sighed, kicking the mattress off of Hanji.

“Oh my _god_ , you’re just so _funny_ ,” Hanji said, ending the statement with a high-pitched whine of mirth.

Levi shook his head. “You are possibly even stranger than I am.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Hanji sighed, pushing themselves into a sitting position. “We’re the house of freaks and rejects now.”

“I would prefer to be the reject, if I get a choice,” Levi said.

“Kay, I’m cool with freak.”

Levi stuck out his hand. “Deal.” 

Hanji stared at it. “You know I still haven’t washed or anything, right?” they said.

Levi raised an eyebrow. His hand didn’t move. Hanji’s face split into an enormous grin, and they clamped on hard and shook strong. Levi was lifted onto his toes by the force of their handshake.

“Let the fuck go!” he snapped, jerking away.

“Partners in crime,” Hanji crowed happily.

And that’s how Levi ended up living and smoking pot in Hanji’s basement.

THE END


End file.
